Passionate about IP! Since June 2003 the IPKat weblog has covered copyright, patent, trade mark, info-tech and privacy/confidentiality issues from a mainly UK and European perspective. The team is David Brophy, Merpel, Jeremy Phillips, Eleonora Rosati, Nicola Searle, Darren Smyth, Annsley Merelle Ward and Neil J. Wilkof. You're welcome to read, post comments and participate in our community. You can email the Kats here

For the half-year to 31 December 2015, the IPKat's regular team is supplemented by contributions from guest bloggers Jani Ihalainen, Nikos Prentoulis and Mark Schweizer.

Birgit Clark is on Sabbatical till the end of the year

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Friday, 13 April 2007

Earlier this week the IPKat asked readers if they could contact Duncan Bucknell with a view to the compilation of a Budweiser scorecard. The template is now up and running, the scorecard consisting (so far) of a brief introduction to the long-running dispute for control of the right to use the word Budweiser for beers and some details of the dispute in seven jurisdictions. Thanks for your support so far - and can you please email Duncan any further information you may have, including case references.

Right: Bloodweiser, from wackypackages.org

The IPKat's friend Tomasz Rychlicki sent himthis link to BusinessWeek, speculating that it might have been an April Fools joke - but it looks the real thing. The Plagiarius concept has been around since 1977. According to the Plagiarus site:

"... "Plagiarius" serves to inform the public about the problem of fakes and plagiarisms and the negative impacts they have on not only the economy as a whole, but also on small companies and designers. Action Plagiarius awards the negative award at the annual “Ambiente” trade fair during a press conference. The award is given to those com-panies that the jury has found guilty of making "the most flagrant" design imitations. As his key figure, Busse chose a gnome, which he painted black with a gold nose to signify the “illicit earnings from product imitation”".

Although he likes to think of himself as a discerning patron of free speech, IPKat team blogger Jeremy has made some monumental decisions relating to proscribed words in JIPLP, the Journal of Intellectual Property Law and Practice, which he edits. From now on:

* No article is allowed to start with the word "Introduction", nor end with the word "Conclusion", unless the presence of either word informs the reader of something of which he might otherwise be unaware;

* In the part of the article that was formerly called "Conclusion" and which will now be renamed to suit the context, the verbal excrescence "it remains to be seen" is to be surgically excised wherever it appears;

* No book reviewer is permitted to describe the book under review as being "interesting" - particularly when no reason is given for it being so;

* The word "perhaps" is prohibited wherever it indicates only that the author wants to say something but is afraid of being wrong;

* The word internet is to be given an initial lower case "i" since it's not the name of a place or a person and doesn't deserve a capital.

If any reader would like to add words or phrases to the proscribed list, email Jeremy here and let him know.

3 comments:

Do you mean that your suggestion is itself pedantic, or that it is the word "pedantic" that you are suggesting banning? Oh, and - if the latter - is that "pedantic" with or without an exclamation mark?

The word Internet arguably is the name of a place - and indeed the Webster dictionary the definitive tome for American English has it properly capitalized. After all, the Internet was invented in the USA. Even the British Oxford dictionary recognizes this fact and also capitalizes Internet. Might I suggest that the esteemed IPKat has his tail in a twist over this point.

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Gama and Pal: is the wet-wipe packaging confusingly similar?

Yesterday morning the IPKat posted this item on an ongoing passing-off action, Gama Healthcare Ltd v Pal International Ltd. in which Gama objected that Pal's wet-wipe packaging would lead people to think it was theirs.

When that Katpost went live, there were no examples of the parties’ packaging to show readers. The Kats have since received images of both, which they reproduce below, and they ask readers, through the medium of the sidebar poll below, if they think that Pal's packaging might be mistaken for Gama’s one.

Pal's packs are sold under the Medipal brand and Gama's are sold as Clinell products.

Caveat: this poll is conducted purely for the amusement of readers of this weblog. It is not mandated by the trial judge or commissioned by either party; it is not based on any methodology and it is not intended to have any evidential value at all.

Wet-wipe packaging: do you think you could pick up a packet of Medipal, thinking it was Clinell?

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